The Jesus Lizard Interview

After members of the group Scratch Acid were introduced to Duane Denison and Mac McNeilly, a new band emerged. The end result would be one that massively shaped a new sound in music—coined “noise rock."

Of course, I am referring to the Jesus Lizard. Six albums passed and the year was 1999; the band came to an end, leaving fans to believe they would never see a reunion. However, in 2009, a small run of reunion shows sparked hope in the eyes of the diehard fans, including those that saw the band at the now-defunct Fun Fun Fun Fest. It was then 2017, and the festival I worked with, Day For Night, convinced the band to perform. Their set gained traction, causing the band to do a few select cities in preparation for their slot here in Houston. To preface their last song at DFN, frontman David Yow announced it would be their final. It was their final...until 2018 when another miniature tour went ahead. I am unsure what is in the band's future, though I can assure that the band put it all on display and put on, arguably, one of the best sets at the 2018 installment of the festival.

I spoke with drummer Mac McNeilly ahead of their Day For Night set, their initial breakup, and what exactly the band looked forward to.

You are about to embark on a mini tour. Day For Night is going to be the band’s sixth show in Houston, the last being 1998—the year I was born, as a matter of fact. For this set the band is going to have the chance to introduce the younger audience to the joys in life that are noise rock. Is noise rock coming back? Did it even go away?

I don’t know, because I don’t know what “noise rock” is. I think people try to get a handle on things by creating a name for a group of bands or maybe bands from a certain time period that sound similar. It’s hard for me to say whether or not it is coming back. I guess I will go with the alternative option: I think it has never gone away. I think bands that want to sound a bit more aggressive or noisy are always going to be there. I think that is what we got termed with—a “noise rock” band. I do not think we ever looked at ourselves that way, though. Rather, we were a band that played rock music under the big umbrella of rock. I know for some people to find a point of reference they have to either give it a name or have it fall under a sub-genre. That is a long answer for “I don’t really know.” But I would say it has never gone away. If you look hard enough, you can find some bands doing some stuff like “noise rock,” or whatever it’s called. Maybe post-punk. There are endless terms for it.

When the band disbanded in 1999, where were you in terms of music? Were you in the mindset that music in general was going down the wrong route?

It is hard to say, really, because I do not know if the bands that are big are any real indication where music is going. I think that is where a lot of attention of people is. The attention is towards that for most, certainly, but not everyone. I think music has a natural evolution based on what came before, and there are natural cycles that—they don’t tend to exactly repeat, but rather revisit a similar style by what is going on historically, politically, and culturally. There is always good music to be found, but you might have to dig a little harder to find it. Sometimes, it is not going to be found in the first layer, or even the second. I would say there is always good music being made, so I think it is hard to say whether or not music was going in the wrong direction at that time. Music just did what it was going to do.

Ten years later the band did a series of reunion shows. Was there ever any talk about doing new material then?

At some point there were talks about writing new material. At that point, though, I do not think there were talks of us just getting back together and hitting the road like we used to do. We were all at different places, mentally. When we were doing it in early to mid 90’s, we toured so much, that we were gone more than we were home, by far. That was fine. Even if the band did get back together today and in a semi-permanent situation, I do not think we would tour like that anymore, just because, for us, we would not want to do that. We would not think it was necessary. Back then there was no internet, so you had to play live to get this buzz going, this word-of-mouth. You had to get people writing about you and then slowly you would build up a crowd over the course of however many months or years you could stay together. Hopefully, you could keep writing and improving.

Also, in 2009, we had no new material; we were just playing songs that we did from before. It was real nice that we were able to do that, but I think some of us wanted to explore some new writing opportunities. However, it just was not going to happen right then. So we will have to wait and see if that comes up again in the future.

That’s actually my next question. In 2016, Day For Night booked the Butthole Surfers and they ended up in talks of a potential comeback. [In 2017] it is your band. Does this set represent the possibility of a new album in 2018? How serious are those conversations, if those are even conversations?

We have learned to never say never in regards to potential things in the future. I do not think that any of us wants to fully shut the door, though we ae not waiting around for another big chance to do it like we once did. I would say we all have our hands in different things right now. I really enjoy, and always have, playing with these guys, though. We have good chemistry—musical chemistry and writing chemistry—so I would like to do that in the future. We will see what happens. But that is nothing definite right now. I would like to see that happen.